


No Man's Land

by thekey



Category: Star Wars: Jedi: Fallen Order (Video Game)
Genre: AU, F/M, TCW Era, Timeline Shift
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-12
Updated: 2020-05-12
Packaged: 2021-03-02 17:13:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,694
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24140380
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thekey/pseuds/thekey
Summary: War leaves no time to waste to wonder about what could have been. But sometimes, in the quiet between firing blasters and shouted orders, there exists a moment that you can allow yourself to. The Clone Wars era. Non-linear.
Relationships: Cal Kestis/Reader
Kudos: 17





	1. Musings of a Friend

**Author's Note:**

> imported from my sideblog, @stellarbattle
> 
> pre-clone wars. youngling cal and reader.

Soft laughter bubbling from your lips is messing with his heart. It feels strange, the way it feels as if it’s rising and floating in his chest… as if you’re using the force to lift it with every note of laughter that escapes you like a song he’s heard on one of the homeworlds and —

Your knee knocks against his as the two of you sit facing each other on the floor in his quarters, legs crossed. He’s suddenly aware of how close you are to him. But how is this different from all the times you’d done this before?

He doesn’t know.

What he does know is that you’re really close and he feels he might burst every time your laughter sends you rocking closer into his orbit.

You’re a mess of euphoria, high on the pride of a mission well carried out at your master’s side, and he wonders how much longer he can last before his own master has to remind him about the dangers of attachment.

(The last time happened as you and your master and passed him and Master Tapal in the hallways of the Jedi temple on Coruscant.

He’d merely smiled at you as you passed, eyes trailing after you as he and Tapal continued on their way. 

Though — He really doesn’t see the need for such reminders.

Of course Jedi aren’t allowed to have attachments, he knew this.

You are his friend.)

“Oh, Cal, I wish you’d seen it!”

He grins. “Show me if we get the chance to go together!”

And yet, somewhere deep in his heart, he has no desire to see anything else but you, completely content with this.

Your laughter has subsided and you sigh into a smile, all sunshine and excitement, true to the friend he knows you to be.

And… yeah.

He’s content with this.


	2. Force Willing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Force beckons you to Cal, enticing you to meet him with what little time you have to do so. Your master follows.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Padawan Cal and Padawan Reader, still pre-Clone Wars. 'Star' is a nickname for the Reader used as a placeholder

You’d have to apologize to your master later, but right now that could wait. The thought of apologizing had gone as quickly as it had come, your mind focused on only one thing; there was no time to think of anything else.

As soon as the transport carrying you and your master had touched down on Coruscant, you were flying out the barely opened hatch like a wild animal that had been let loose, following their instincts and dashing back home.

You could already hear your master’s sigh when you would meet up with them later tonight —

Cut currently, that fell short on your list of things to worry about.

You weaved between various Jedi and temple guards, robes whipping around you. As you passed by the giant windows lining the corridor you were running through, the warmth that could only be felt on the surface level of Coruscant bathed you, a nice contrast to the icy, albeit sacred planet you had just returned from. A new weight, only recently attached to your hip called attention to itself as you were reminded of the planet.

“Hey! _Star’s_ back!” a familiar voice shouted.

At the sound of your nickname, you turned around quickly, slowing your pace yet still stepping backward to keep moving. Your eyes searched the crowd you had just run past to find the owner of the voice —

La’ayla. A fellow padawan.

You grinned and waved at your pink twi’lek friend who was flanked by friends of her own, all watching you with excitement in their eyes. She raised her brows in question.

“I’ll tell you later! I gotta go,” you said, laughing when her expression slipped from anticipation and into disappointment.

The rest of her friends (and by extension, yours, though you didn’t see them as often as you did La’ayla) deflated as well.

But there was no time to explain. Your feet were antsy to carry you to your destination.

“Sorry!” you waved quickly then turn around, running at full speed once again.

“Careful, padawan!” you heard a voice call after you as you passed but you couldn’t put aside the time to apologize.

Your heart pounded against your chest, both from your travel and excitement. You could feel it in your stomach — that pull as the Force beckoned you. Your master had spoken of it before; of the Force guiding those who were willing to listen and follow to exactly where they needed to be. You had felt it a few times, but there were certain, special moments when it was easier to recognize than others. You had never been so happy to follow where it was guiding you.

You had to make it to the landing pad on the other side of the temple before —

“Hold on, master, can we wait a little while longer?” You heard a familiar voice just around the corner. Your heart soared and felt as if it was pounding against your chest to meet the one that voice belonged to. “Star said —”

Your hand grabbed the corner of the wall, using it so that you could whip around and —

Purple.

Then red.

Just what you were looking for.

“Cal!”

Your friend turned around, and suddenly it was green that you saw, and only green you really wanted to see.

His eyes sparkled as they did whenever you saw him, and Cal Kestis smiled and left Jaro Tapal’s side to meet you halfway.

“So?” he asked excitedly, eyes searching you.

You produced what he had wanted to see, the weight in your hand making pride swell in your chest —

Your lightsaber. 

The hilt, shiny and a stranger to conflict, glittered in the Coruscant sunlight that shone through the windows of the Jedi Temple. 

You don’t know how his smile could have gotten any bigger than it did when he turned around to see you, but it did when his eyes fell upon your lightsaber.

“Wow,” he exhaled in a voice that was almost a whisper. As if it was forbidden to speak in the tool’s presence.

Your eyes roamed across his face, connecting the freckles that spread across his skin like the stars you traveled amongst into constellations. Pride shone in his eyes, and you beamed in its warmth.

“I did it,” you said, suddenly quiet too.

He stopped admiring the hilt of your lightsaber to meet your gaze.

“I knew you would,” he said. Like it was the easiest thing anyone could ever say. Like a greeting.

And to be so adored by Cal Kestis, oh, was there any other feeling?

Suddenly, a purple hand rested on your friend’s shoulder.

“Alright, it’s time to go now.”

You looked up to see Jaro Tapal, who smiled down at you apologetically.

“Congratulations, padawan,” he said with a warm tilt of his head. “I wish we had the time to celebrate with you, but I am afraid cal and I must go.”

You looked back at your red-headed friend, just in time to catch his smile falter ever so slightly.

You knew that you’d be lucky to even see him. You had prepared yourself for this the whole trip back to Coruscant, so why…?

You nodded and mustered a smile that you flashed at Jaro, hoping it wasn’t wavering as much as your heart was. 

You bowed your head. 

“Thank you, master.” 

When you looked up again, Cal’s smile had returned, though his eyes didn’t quite match it like they had moments before. Your heart continued to hurt in a way that you knew it shouldn’t. Your friend raised his eyebrows as he inhaled deeply. 

“Will you and Master Shakka be here when we return?” he asked, hope flashing across his eyes. 

You winced slightly, unsure of this yourself. You hoped – 

“I’m afraid not, padawan,” the familiar voice of your master, even and warm, had entered the conversation. Their peach-colored hand came to rest upon your own shoulder, much like Jaro’s was on Cal’s. 

Should your heart have broken the way that it did? 

You didn’t know. But something inside you told you that you weren’t the only one feeling this way. Cal averted his gaze. 

You looked up at your master, her lekku adorned with curling silver markings. She watched Cal with sympathy in her eyes. 

“Master Shakka,” Jaro Tapal said, nodding in greeting. 

“Master Tapal,” Shakka’s gaze moved to meet Jaro’s. She smiled and bowed in return. “I wish you and Cal a safe journey.” 

Both Jaro and cal thanked her. 

Cal flashed you one last smile and waved half-heartedly before turning around to follow Jaro, who was already a few paces ahead of him. 

You felt as if your whole being was following him, leaving your body in its place next to your master. 

“My dear padawan,” your master called you back to your place. Suddenly, she wasn’t at your side. She was knelt in front of you, deep brown eyes sincere. “What you feel is natural, but we mustn’t have attachments.”

You nodded, shoving down the stubborn part of you that wanted to protest and deny that you were forming an attachment – even if you knew that you were. 

“I know.” 

You knew. 

Though you also knew, realization dawning upon your young shoulders with the weight of destiny-- of the _Force_ \-- that you and Cal were bound to one another.


	3. Settled

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Jedi Council believes yours and Cal’s battalions to be the best fit to tend to a recent development in the Clone Wars. It’s the first time you’ve seen him since you were appointed a Jedi General.

Cal is sweating underneath Commander Crow’s gaze, and the brown robes he’s swathed in do little to help. In his experience, sweat has never bled through Jedi robes to become visible, even in battle, but… he could always be proven wrong. Though, he really hopes he isn’t about to be. Sweating through his robes, sending his smell through the briefing room would not be ideal for his first time seeing you in many cycles. _You._

The thought sends his stomach tumbling and he straightens to meet your clone commander’s stare. If Crow was here, then where were you? 

The commander looks away, and Cal seizes the opportunity.

Cal studies Crow from across the room, curious. By now you’d spent a lot of time with your commander, and he couldn’t help but wonder what you’d done together in that time. Crow’s armor is painted in a green that reminds him of the forests of Kashyyyk. The green lines cross the white of his chestplate, intersecting in an ‘X’, his forearms and calves painted all green. He’s intimidating, and even more so without the helmet which rests in between his arm and hip. His black hair is freshly buzzed close to his head, the shape of a gavel on the side of it next to his ear even closer. _Why the gavel–?_

“There something wrong, sir?” 

Crow interrupts Cal’s thoughts having caught the young Jedi General staring in the moments he had looked away. He swears the Jedi’s cheeks go almost as red as his hair, but it could be the lighting. Well… no, it can’t. He stifles a smirk. Wait ‘til he tells you about that. 

Cal clears his throat. “No, Commander.” 

He clears his throat again. “Do you know where St– the General is?” 

Crow lifts an eyebrow, amused by General Kestis’s cover-up. What was he about to address you as? “Don’t worry, sir, the General will be here any –” 

The doors to the briefing room slide open, for a moment filling it with the bustling noise of the clones rushing about outside. Cal’s eyes widen, head snapping towards the doors. 

It’s you. His best friend from his years as a youngling, able to send laughter bubbling from his chest and tumbling through his mouth in a way no one had ever been able to do. Twenty years old now, but seventeen when he had stolen a kiss from you in the dark night, tucked away into a corner behind one of the few trees outside the Jedi Temple on Coruscant. And seventeen you were when you’d held his heart in your hands that night, gently and dutifully giving it back to him. A true Jedi before you’d even been knighted. 

Three years. It had been three years since then, and now here you are before him. You. Twenty, a Jedi General, jade robes cascading to the floor. 

And he is there too, stepping towards you before even realizing it. It had taken him a very, very long time before he learned to conceal his attachment to you. He was young, but he still is. Young, and realizing that he still feels very much the same about you even though his training. Jaro Tapal’s teaching shouts _wrong, wrong, wrong._

But _oh_ , how could it feel so right? Right, the way you step into the room. Right, the way your eyes twinkle with a smile. Right, the way your jade robes matching the paint on Commander Crow’s less than shiny armor flow behind you as you move. 

You are here. He is here, too, after so long wanting to be wherever you were. 

But so is Commander Crow. He is highly amused by General Kestis, and doesn’t fail to notice the look in your eyes. 

“General,” crow greets, stepping around the holotable to make room for you at his side. 

And Cal Kestis’s world is cut by the commander’s voice. He remembers his place. Bows in greeting to you with a polite smile. 

“General,” he says, voice sending a smile you’d been trying to hold back flying across your face. 

You bow as well. “General Kestis.” 

The two of you straighten at the same time, eyes never leaving the other’s. The pull in his stomach that he’s tried to ignore for as long as he can remember settles satisfyingly.

Your eyes run across his face before meeting his eyes. “It’s good to see you, old friend.” 

He doesn’t even care about that, knowing you are so much more to him. 

“You too.” 

You smile once more, and it’s the same smile you gave him as you laughed in his quarters on coruscant when the two of you were younglings, telling a tale of a mission you’d gone on with your master. Before the clone wars. 

And then you turn from him to crow. 

“Commander,” you greet, a familiarity tilting your tone upwards. 

Crow nods to you, looking as if he wants to say something. You roll your eyes as if knowing what it is. Cal observes, lost. 

Might as well turn the conversation to what the three of you are all here for, turn it to something he knows. 

“So –” 

“It would seem –” 

You start speaking at the same time as Cal. The corner of his lips quirk upward as the two of you look at each other across the holotable. 

“Go ahead, General,” you say. 

“So,” he continues, turning on the holotable. The three of you are washed blue in its light. “The Republic needs forces on Krayac. The Jedi Council has asked the 44th and the 78th specifically to settle the tension there.” 

You fold your arms, studying the planet’s capital city that the holotable projects. “Krayac? I was under the impression that the republic had already secured that planet’s support.” 

“The Republic thought the same thing, however, the Jedi Council has reason to believe otherwise.” With a swipe of his hand, a cloaked figure replaces the image of the capital. “The Republic wants to be safe.”

It's just a projection and yet... the aura is heavy and unmistakable.

“A Sith Lord?” you ask, eyebrows furrowing in concern. You lean around the projection of the figure to look at Cal. His mouth is set in a frown, though it eases slightly when his gaze meets yours. 

“Could be,” Cal says, hoping that it’s not. “But if their presence is enough to concern the Council, we need to find out what they’re doing down there.” 

Crow speaks up. “And when do we move?” 

Ever the strategist, your commander. 

“As soon as possible. Are your men ready, Commander?” 

Crow smirks as if it’s the most asinine question anyone’s ever asked. You’re not so dissimilar. 

“Of course,” the both of you say at the same time, and Cal blinks, taken aback. 

“Are yours?” you challenge, though there’s not a hint of malice in your tone. 

“We never aren’t,” cal replies. 

You rest your hands along the edges of the holotable and lean forward. 

“Let’s talk strategy, then.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> what's the strat, boys --


End file.
